So think I just punched a decent-sized hole in a claim abt post-2010 prison drops that sat well w me: the claim by Right-on-Crime types that red states had something to teach us abt decarceration.
My suspicion, that I now have numbers for?
It was their blue counties doing the real work.
From 2009-19, there were 9 states w consistent GOP house control (8-10 yrs) and declines in prison pops.
This table breaks out the declines by type of county (urban vs. rural) and ideology of the county (average % of county's vote for the Dem POTUS).
The basic story: declines driven by Dem metros.
If PA seems like a strange state to include (its house was consistently GOP until last year, tho often had Dem governor), dropping it doesn't really change anything.
Dem metros did all the heavily lifting.
Now, there is some interstate variation. These graphs are a little ugly, but they disaggregate the tables into the nine relevant states.
SC and NC saw some bipartisan declines.
But still, a clear pattern: Dem-leaning counties generally declines. Rep-leaning ones all over the map.
There are two theories here:
1. GOP-dominated leges passed laws that enabled their Dem-led cities to adopt less-punitive policies.
2. Dem-led urban counties used their discretion to incarcerate less, despite the general punitive desires of the state lege.
#2 is plausible. #1 is ... basically not.
There are other ways to break this down, like by looking at GOP trifecta states in particular.
And need to look at Dem decliners, then compare both to Dem- and GOP-led states that saw increases.
Obv a longer blog post will come soon.
But still: the red-state declines are really BLUE-COUNTY drops.
Was there really that many people saying it wasn’t? Like to me it’s obvious that the areas where voters are less carceral would support less carceral criminal justice policies.
Thanks for doing this, John. The original claim seemed implausible given right-wing rhetoric, but that's just vibes. Your disaggregation of the data is really informative.
